In its opinion in Keefe v. Adams, a divided panel of the Eighth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a student from the Associate Degree Nursing Program at Central Lakes College (CLC) in Minnesota. Other students had complained about posts on Craig Keefe’s Facebook page and he was eventually removed from the program for :behavior unbecoming of the profession and transgression of professional boundaries." Keefe challenged the constitutionality of the dismissal based on the First Amendment and procedural due process. The district judge granted summary judgment for the university officials and the majority opinion, authored by Judge James Loken for the Eighth Circuit panel, affirmed.

The concerning posts involved other students in the class and group projects, including his objection to a fellow student changing the group presentation - "Not enough whiskey to control that anger" and calling another student a "bitch" for presumably reporting his Facebook posts.

There was also this:

Doesnt anyone know or have heard of mechanical pencils. Im going to take this electric pencil sharpener in this class and give someone a hemopneumothorax with it before to long. I might need some anger management.

In a footnote, the court helpfully explains:

a hemopneumothorax is a “trauma” where the lung is punctured and air and blood flood the lung cavity; it is not a medical procedure.

College officials discussed the posts and Keefe originally deflected. He was dismissed from the program under specific provisions in the Nursing Program Student Handbook which also refers to the Nurses Association Code of Ethics, including professional boundaries and "behavior unbecoming." He appealed within the the college, citing failures of procedural due process, but his appeal was denied.

On the procedural due process issue, the majority concluded:

Viewing the summary judgment record as a whole, we conclude that Keefe was provided sufficient notice of the faculty’s dissatisfaction, an explanation of why his behavior fell short of the professionalism requirements of the Program, an opportunity to respond to the initial decision-maker, and an opportunity to appeal her adverse decision. Nothing in the record suggests that Keefe’s removal from the Nursing Program was not a careful and deliberate, genuinely academic decision.

Dissenting in part, Judge Jane Kellyargued that the dismissal decision was not "academic." Instead, it was a disciplinary dismissal for which he argued the due process standard should be higher. Judge Kelly highlighted one of the meetings with Keefe in which he was not given all the posts beforehand with "time to review the posts and formulate a response." However, Judge Kelly contended that the college administrators were entitled to qualified immunity on the due process claim.

The First Amendment issue is the central one. As Judge Loken's opinion for the majority notes, Keefe frames the issue categorically: "a college student may not be punished for off-campus speech," unless that speech is "unprotected by the First Amendment." Judge Loken characterized this as an "extreme position" not adopted by any court.

The Eighth Circuit majority rehearsed some of the cases involving academic requirements for professionalism and fitness, including cases such as Wardand Keetoninvolving professional students' failure to comply with anti-bias requirements. These principles, the court held, were equally pertinent to off-campus speech, especially given that the off-campus speech was "directed at classmates, involved their conduct in the Nursing Program, and included a physical threat related to their medical studies."

For the dissenting judge, it was important that Keefe's Facebook posts "were not made as part of fulfilling a program requirement and did not express an intention to break specific curricular rules." As to the "threat," the dissenting judge argued that the district judge had failed to make findings that Keefe's statement qualified as a true threat. For the dissenting judge, summary judgment was improper.

The split opinion might indicate that the case is a good candidate for en banc review and there were First Amendment groups as amici on behalf of the dismissed student. Nevertheless, the Eighth Circuit opinion does comport with the trend of allowing professional educational programs latitude to "professionalize" students and to dismiss those who do not conform.